Foreigners cross border illegally= $0 fine, Americans cross border illegally= $5000 fine...

This is the strange country and time we now live in...

Via Washington Times:

U.S. Border Patrol agents slapped a $5,000 fine on an American citizen this week for slipping into the United States from Canada on a mountain bike, the agency announced Wednesday.
The 40-year-old American and his 44-year-old Canadian companion were nabbed Sunday near Houlton, Maine, after allegedly biking across the border south of Notre Dame, Canada, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
A Border Patrol agent spotted the two men at about 2:30 p.m. with mountain bikes on a dirt road near the border. After questioning the suspects, the agent arrested them for illegally crossing the border.
Each was fined $5,000, said CBP.
If the same penalty was applied to American’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrations, the federal government could collect $55 billion.
Keep reading…

Asinine: Obama administration fines oil companies for not blending in nonexistent bio-fuel

You can't make stuff this stupid up.

(NY Times) — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.


But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.

In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.

“It belies logic,” Charles T. Drevna, the president of the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association, said of the 2011 quota. And raising the quota for 2012 when there is no production makes even less sense, he said.

TSA Doubles-Down and Threatens $11,000 Fine and Possible Arrest if Fliers Refuse Naked Scanners and Groping

TSA Has a strong message for fliers. If you don't want to give up your 4yh Amendment rights and be stripped naked electronically or have your "junk" felt-up by TSA staff, stay away from the airport this Thanksgiving. They are threatening $11,000 fines and possible arrest.

Sun Sentinel reported:

If you don't want to pass through an airport scanner that allows security agents to see an image of your naked body or to undergo the alternative, a thorough manual search, you may have to find another way to travel this holiday season.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport.

That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest.

Here are your choices according to TSA.

Get naked at the airport.


Get an intimate fondling at the airport.


The friendly skies have gotten a little too friendly.